A Week of Inspiration and Insight at the Business Fights Poverty Global Summit 2021
It was inspiring to witness the extent of our collective energy and expertise at the Business Fights Poverty Global Summit 2021. This five-day event, held from 21-25th June, brought together over 80 speakers with more than 1000 registered participants to celebrate the successes of our members; share insights and lessons learned; and build our resilience. […]
Corporate Philanthropy Reimagined: The Resilience Fund for Women in Global Value Chains
The emerging post-pandemic world demands both reflection and imagination. Changemakers in the private sector should consider this a strategic moment to transform the way business engages with local communities in their global supply chains, and to advance new solutions to the pressing need for gender equality, health, and economic resilience. The UN Foundation’s Universal Access Project, […]
Empowering action towards improved livelihoods
We often talk about system-level change to address root causes of poverty and the imbalance of risk. This requires us to unite in different and creative ways. The Living Income Community of Practice motivates actors across sectors to help close the income gap, so that smallholders can earn a decent standard of living as a […]
How can business-led innovation support refugees?
We know that the humanitarian landscape is changing – crises have become more protracted and complex, as well as characterised by greater barriers to humanitarian assistance. The COVID-19 crisis and associated economic turbulence is also accelerating need. In this context, business has a role to play in developing a more sustainable response to global displacement and in […]
VIDEO: How can business harness technology to support women entrepreneurs?
Hashitha Abeywardana is Senior Technical Advisor at Chrysalis, an organisation that helps communities and institutions to embrace diversity and catalyze inclusive growth for women and youth. In this session, Hashitha explained how companies can harness technology to support women entrepreneurs and to address gender based violence. Also, he listed several good examples of initiatives that […]
Since the pandemic, many businesses have accelerated their strategies towards greater social purpose.
AB InBev is the world’s largest brewer with a mission to “bring people together for a better world”. One might consider this to be smart marketing to sell beer, but they are also letting their purpose do the talking with the creation of the AB InBev Foundation, an independent non-profit that is helping to advance […]
UK Aid Cuts Jeopardise Sustainable Development and Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships – Girls’ and Women’s Needs are At Risk
In May 1946, the first 20,000 CARE Packages arrived in France. These critical deliveries of basic supplies such as flour, soup, tinned meat and chocolate, helped feed families in post-war Europe. Around 400,000 had? arrived in Britain when we needed them most. Altogether, more than 100 million CARE Packages were packed and shipped to Europe, […]
Five reasons why digital work may help promote inclusion of youth with disabilities
Digital jobs are opening up important new work opportunities for youth with disabilities in developing countries. The COVID‒19 pandemic has accelerated the expansion of jobs which offer flexibility, accommodations for disability and functional access for remote communities. In our new report “Digital Jobs for Youth with Disabilities,” S4YE highlights strategies that programs have used to increase inclusion of […]
Announcing the launch of the GSMA Innovation Fund for Digital Urban Services
Urban services such as plastics and waste management, energy, water, and sanitation are essential to well-being and the creation of more circular economies. While the historic rise in mobile connectivity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has helped drive social impact and contribute to economic growth, billions of people still lack access to these basic […]
How can we accelerate multi-stakeholder partnering to tackle waves of urgent threats?
As part of the TPI Blog series, we welcome this piece by Susanne Salz of Partnerships2030 and Darian Stibbe of TPI. This article considers what we can learn from multi-stakeholder-partnerships which developed during the Covid-19 pandemic for other partnerships now and in future. It is equally if not more urgent and important to address another global threat – […]
Examples from the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark COVID-19 study: How some companies are responding to the crisis in a meaningful way
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit businesses hard, wiping out the equivalent of 255 million jobs in 2020 alone – four times more than the 2009 financial crisis. Unskilled labourers, minorities and women have been particularly hard hit. In February 2021 the World Benchmarking Alliance released a COVID-19 and human rights study of the same 229 […]
Digital Dividends in Plastic Recycling
Plastic is an integral and valuable part of the global economy, and is used in thousands of products that add comfort, convenience and safety to our everyday lives. It supports innovation in medicine, lightens cars and airplanes (saving fuel and, therefore, emissions), extends the life of fresh food and delivers clean drinking water to billions […]
Sea freight strengthens Kenya-to-Europe flower supply chain
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, global supply chains were hit hard, affecting millions of workers across the globe. In the Kenyan floriculture sector, the subsequent 25-40% air freight reduction has meant lower export rates, a supply slowdown, and loss of jobs for thousands. At FlowerWatch, we’re involved in a project of the United Kingdom’s Foreign, […]
Growing Haiti’s food systems with determination and partners
Even before the novel coronavirus became a global threat, the United Nations had dire predictions for Haiti in 2020. A UN humanitarian agency report in December 2019 forecast that within months 40 percent of Haitians would “require urgent humanitarian assistance.” Causes included political upheaval, insecurity and rising food prices. Adding a pandemic to the mix […]
How can companies contribute to growth that generates benefits for society as a whole?
One of the objectives that we pursue in our IV report is to create greater awareness of inequality and make poverty in our country more visible by making its different faces known: child poverty, energy poverty, or the so-called “poor with work,” people who, even with a permanent job, do not make ends meet. During […]
Social metrics – or how to move towards a sustainable future that works for everyone
When we talk about businesses it is easy to forget that we are really talking about people. Companies are collections of humans, whose decisions and actions impact other humans: employees and their families, surrounding communities, workers in their value chains, and consumers. It all starts and ends with people, for people, by people – it […]
Innovation in the Face of Crisis: How to Support Entrepreneurs during the Continuing COVID-19 Pandemic
When the COVID-19 pandemic reached El Salvador, it delivered a blow to Fátima Meléndez, owner of Lafá Cake Boutique in San Salvador. Most of the company’s business came from providing cakes and dessert tables at weddings, which were cancelled indefinitely when El Salvador entered a strict, months-long lockdown. Lafá saw its sales plummet and even […]
Why living wages will help flower workers to ‘bloom back better’ after Covid-19
The flower and plant sector is an incredibly important source of hundreds of thousands of jobs in low-income countries, and is particularly vital for women who make up around half of the workforce. Globally, the export of cut flowers was worth over £6.75bn in 2018. However, with prices paid to flower farms for their products […]
Over 300 practical tools to make your youth employment initiative a success
Youth unemployment in developing countries is a pressing problem – youth face multiple constraints that affect both their decision to enter the labor force and their access to employment. And the Covid-19 has further exacerbated these issues. According to the World Bank youth and women are particularly negaitively impacted by the effects of the pandemic. […]
Building the next generation of responsible businesses and leaders
Everyone has the right to decent work. Meaning, a job which delivers a fair income in a safe environment with prospects for the future and social integration. A job which offers social protections if you are sick, have family commitments or are injured. A place where you have the freedom to express your concerns, organise […]